The Wolf and Lion
by MorriganFearn
Summary: It is 1632, and Sweden is in a Prussian Bar, The Wolf and Lion. Because, as Denmark says, we both got stomped. A Thirty Years War interlude. Bromance-y Denmark/Sweden, and dark themes within.


**Author's Note:** I apologize for Sweden's complete illegibility in places. It is intentional, as he is drunk, on top of his normal mode of speaking, but it does make for a hard read. Also, this fic implies a very cruel Spain, and is full of war/death/sex imagery. Also: see if you can spot the SuFin. It's there, even if Finland is not mentioned.

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**Historical Note**

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This occurs in 1632, in the middle of the "Swedish Intervention" in the Thirty Years War.

The Thirty Years War exploded for a lot of reasons. The religious aspect with the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism is always played up, as well as the fact that the European powers were just too prosperous. They had nothing better to do than start a massive religious war that laid waste to the agricultural center of the continent, it seems. Your mileage may vary with that theory. There was also the Bourbon (France) Hapsburg (Spain and Austria) rivalry to consider. In an era where a nation was defined by what ruling family you were loyal to, these two families were a'feuding big time. The Hapsburgs controlled everything, and this just got worse when the Hapsburgs married into the Spanish thrones with their control of international trade. The Bourbons did not really see why the Hapsburgs should have all that power, so France went out, as soon as the religious strife broke out in the middle of the Hapsburg Empire, and started finding any nation that might be interested in attacking the Hapsburg, and promised to foot the bills. Hey, it had worked with the Netherlands, why not see if their were others as good at holding a bloody angry grudge? Side note: The Eighty Years' War, of which the Thirty Years War is only the last thirty years, suggests that _no one_ is as good at holding a grudge as the Dutch.

Either way, there were many pressures on the cooker pot known as Europe, and the tail-end of the war brought the Nordics onto the stage to defend Protestantism in the North German Duchies of the Holy Roman Empire. Denmark intervened first, funded by France and the Netherlands. It took a huge chunk out of the northern part of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the HRE forces rallied under a Bohemian general, brutally repelled Denmark, and effectively forced out of the war altogether. Denmark would only return at the very end of the war on the Imperial side, to harry Sweden.

Sweden, united under the king who ushered in the Golden Age of the Swedish Empire, took up the "defense" of Protestantism in the Northern Duchies by laying waste to them, and the rest of the HRE. In 1632 at the Battle of Lützen, the leader of Sweden, King Gustav Adolf the Great, commonly known as Gustavus Adolphus, went missing, and was killed during the fighting. For a while the Swedish lines were demoralized, and then the body was found. Like in the best stories, the loss of the beloved leader turned the army into a raging death machine that tore up the Imperial forces. It was a decisive victory for the Swedish, but the loss of their leader took a while to get over, and they split their attention between the war in the HRE, and the fighting the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth was engaging in with Russia. See: The Time of Troubles (And men named Dmitri). It was rather a problem for Russia, but he turned it around quite effectively.

For simplicity's sake, I am using Spain as the boss country of the Holy Roman Empire. By this time, the German Duchies have been reduced to nothing but battlefields. The Austrian end of the Hapsburg tree was also in trouble on all sides, and was sort of just hoping that Emperor Ferdinand or Bohemia would take care of things. Finally, Emperor Ferdinand is one of the Spanish Hapsburgs.

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**The Wolf and Lion**

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Sweden blinked. The film covering his eyes from after the blink took long enough to shift to tell him that the fact that the schnapps no longer burned—_the way his lion had burned, dieing on a stomach wound that would not stop searing and searing and searing_—was probably because he had finally hit his limit, and not because they had started watering the clear syrup that Prussia called alcohol. In Brandenburg's[1] defense, as long as it was that silver head's damned country, they would never water the alcohol. Wait.

A thought struck like a dog from the shadows. He was swearing in his head. Since when. That wasn't him. But it was. Sweden. Fury raging more angrily than a hangover on a Sunday, and more futility than he had allowed himself to rage in a long time.

Spreading out over the counter, heedless of how his breast plate ground harshly against the wood, Sweden asked, with controlled, cold, angry, furious calm, for another shot. Prussia had left ages ago. He needed to rescue some of his peasants, or something. Stupid peasants. Not giving Sweden what he needed [2]. Humans were. Don't think about it. Humans were. Don't think! Why did it hurt this much? Over the ashes of the small body of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and Austria would regret everything. They would regret their power. They had not met power. Sweden was power. He would destroy them.

_"Must be great to have an attachment like that," Prussia's face was a study in wistful thinking, looking over the rim of his tankard. The sun was setting, washing him in red. "I'd like that some day. The way you and those men turned on them. It was like the lion was—."_

_"Sh't. Up."_

_"You are drunk," Prussia seemed to realize, his grating eagerness becoming something like pity, which was nearly incredible considering how much Sweden had personally carved out of him._

_"Wh't I g'ttasay? Arschloch! H'lt. D'. Kl'ppe." The angular face hit the beer-sticky wood once more, no longer wanting to understand or be understood by Prussia. By anyone in the bar._

What happened next had managed to lose itself in the melting blur of memories from the edges of Sweden's vision. The fire crackled in the hearth. Blue eyes stared at it, long, low and frozen. He hoped that the damned fractured, broken, pitiful little empire burned. He hoped that Spain, that little _bastard _Bohemia, and Austria and their monks and their nuns, and their corruption died writhing in the fires of their war. Where was that next drink?

A cold wind stirred the flames in the grate. The coldest, oldest wind. Their northern breeze, which propelled ships filled with spirits trapped in wood upon the water roads. Sweden pushed his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the doorway, snarling as he saw the blood speckled form of Denmark. Of course, he was grinning the cold grin that flew over the snow with blunt claws and darkness in its wake. It was also the same grin that looked eagerly from a pile of sleeping bodies by the fire, and rolled over, mutely requesting a belly rub.

"G't out," Sweden was swaying on his feet, balanced for a fight. Behind the bar, the man was making hasty preparations to leave. The breakables had long since been packed away.

Denmark, reaching casually over the wood counter, took a bottle from the hide away panel. In a smooth, solid blur, the axe neatly chopped the neck from the rest of the glass. Sweden's head pounded with the gentle clinking of the surprised ice-like ring on the counter before he realized that Denmark had managed to down a full bottle of schnapps in one go. Not that this was anything new. But the finished bottle was flipped expertly upside down, Denmark hanging onto the shortened neck.

Time slowed, as Sweden ducked. The bottle whizzed over his head, and crashed against the nearest wall. His sheath caught the downward decent of the axe, whose freezing iron bit through layers of good _Spanish_ leather, and rebounded off hard steel. Sweden's arms had moved like weighted stones to bring up that defense, but it had saved him a nose.

_Around a pillar Danmark darted, his weapon swinging in eager blood lust, catching Sweden in the side. The Union was crumbling, and the freezing teal eyes had seen that if he could just make Sweden hurt enough, then Sweden could not leave the house._

This time, over a century later, Sweden was drunk, and encumbered with his armor, which was no more protection against Denmark's axe blows than it was against the blows of blurred memories of the man he loved.

Sweden roared, as Denmark staggered back, trying to recover from the momentum of his own weapon's recoil. Unsheathing the blade gave the tallest country of the continent a second weapon of gleaming steel. He rushed his shorter fellow, stiff leather weapon carrier clubbing Denmark savagely in the side for the wound a century ago. The gleaming sword swept forward in a neck bound upper cut. Only princes could be executed by the sword, but Sweden would make an exception.

Silver bounced off the black cold-hardened wooden haft Denmark brought in front of his body just in time. Like in the old days they hurled their strength against once another, pushing for submission and death through straining symbols of military might. Like the old days, blond circled blond. There was something faintly funny to Sweden that for the first time he was the drunk, and Demark was soberly circling, eyes swearing friendlily at him in the oldest language. Their old language of water, ice, and power.

Needing to reverse their old game even further, the armored man disengaged from the straining weapons, and swept the longsword up, back, and down, seeking blood in a controlled crescent that lunged eagerly at the already bloodied nation. Sweden snarled with grim, furious smugness as the sword slipped through stupid hunting leathers of red and rusty brown.

"Fuuuuck!" Drawing in breath through his teeth, Denmark made the howl of pain bone chilling.

The metal head of the axe demolished two chairs as he staggered back, still trying to hit Sweden, who swayed to the side at the last minute. Blood flowed along the sword, a mighty river of red gushing over metal, and then falling from the blade over iron chains draping from thick wrist manacles, coating them in scarlet. The color eternally suited the smaller country, Sweden decided, while the body fell into a table.

Then, as if the table had not been there, and Denmark had never even heard of pain, the axe was hurtling for Sweden, Denmark after it, with a rattling of chains. This time the big country misjudged a swing of his hard sheath, and stumbled away from the blow, only to fetch up against a wall, breathing hard. The axe had buried itself in a support pillar just behind him, and now the tavern was groaning all around the two.

Drawing himself upright, Sweden glared across the intervening space. Denmark was nothing. _Nothing_. A boy wearing light leather in a war zone, ready to go deer hunting with an axe. His lithe body, always a source of secret envy from the nation who worried about the stiffness of his own posture, wore the bloodstains well. Old and new. Sweden wondered if he could do the same, feeling the alcohol finally do its job, and wash him with warmth.

Old bloodstains, chains and all. This would make more sense in the morning. This would make more sense when he left the bloody inn. But only after he took something of Denmark's. A finger. A hand. An arm. Something, something to remind him that just because he did not have Spain (yet. The foul Catholic would learn not to wear fancy perfumes of exotic lands in the presence of the Nordic country), France (yet. Again, yet. Sweden would _have_ all that wine, and damn the ugly wenches), Austria (who would make no more irritating little tinklings once the long, slender fingers were frostbitten) and the Holy Roman Empire (war ravaged the boy might be, but he was still a good prize, if kept tied up somewhere safe), he was Sverige, and nations would tremble at the name [3].

Then Danmark laughed. He put chained hands on his knees, the axe leaning dangerously in the crook of one arm as he chortled. "You utter asshole."

After the devastation of the battlefield, after the loss of the greatest king Sweden had ever known, after ripping Spain's army to pieces with the shining blade, bare hands, and one nation's fury, the laugh was a slap in the face. Sweden trembled slightly, blue eyes gleaming. That laugh. For three centuries there it had been, over the ruins of things that Sweden thought of as important, Danmark laughed, as though it was all right, and everything was fine. As if the wounds did not matter.

Now, this night, those wounds never really had mattered. Sweden had not really known, even under Margarethe's [4] ambitious rule, the kinds of pain that a country had to bear once they became too attached. One brilliant blonde man who was—who was—who—Denmark was laughing at that. At gentle, intelligent, wonderful men who fought, and killed, and bled, and died, and _believed_ in Sweden. It might have been three centuries ago, or it might have been today. Denmark was always laughing. As if it was fine that they were all in pain because of his idiocy. As though everything was all right. As though it was all some big joke.

Sweden leaped at him, once more, sword aiming for the heart. The axe came around in a full swinging arc, splinters flying everywhere. And somewhere in the drunken haze surrounding Sweden, the walls came crumbling down.

It was later. Much later. Both men were lying in the light dusting of snow, the tavern in ruins around them. Denmark's blood was much warmer on Sweden's cheek than the taller nation would have imagined. Cold air usually made drying liquid colder, right? It was not the best first thought on sobering up, but there were worse ones. Such as how uncomfortable armor was on snow.

Their breath, billowing into the deep blue sky, mingled in one cloud, and then spread out, dissipating. For some reason, Sweden could not feel the driving fury any more. His responsibilities were clearer. He should be at a border, checking on the almighty fight between Poland and Russia [5]. The clanging and clashing of arms called to him, faintly through the clearing haze. Involvement in the war here had been a mistake. As a country, he had a duty to do something other than sit around moping. That was an indulgence.

Chains clanked once more, as the excessively beaten Denmark rose to a sitting position, and began searching the wreckage for an unbroken bottle. Sweden continued to look at the far-off bright stars, feeling that somehow, as soon as he sat up, he would have to head for that calling border.

"So, that was good, yeah?" Denmark asked lazily, turning over another spar from the wreck they had made. "Got it out of your system, _Sverige_?"

Blue eyes narrowed dangerously. Denmark could still be run through, if Sweden could summon the fortitude to raise his arms. The dragging chains crossed his line of vision, and Sweden suddenly realized that there was something wrong with this picture. Something that had been wrong since the very beginning.

Denmark casually pulled up a huge board, and dumped it on Sweden's chest, deciding that huge things belonged together. He grinned. "Ah ha! Wanna help me drink this? It'll only go to waste in Prussia's belly. I wonder what he's like drunk? Probably not half as fun as you, but still. Meh. I don't have time for small territories. Does that weirdo knight even count as a nation? Though he's gotten a little stronger since converting. Faith. Pah. What did they know of it, you know? We've been through thousands of gods and God. Never changes anything real. The shape of the land. The feel of the waves under the deck. Still, everyone's really up on this new version. Maybe that's what we'll do. Instead of throwing gods out, we'll start re-writing them. Save a lot of time trying to decide if I am on the side of the invaders because they'll be good-bad-who-knows? for the Danes. I can be on everyone's side, this way, and the fights are incredible."

Propping himself up on his elbows, Sweden looked along the chains as they withdrew. One end of iron links attached to manacles not quite covered by Denmark's sleeves. The skin at the edges contained the pink of raw flesh, and there were several rings of red there. The other end ran down to a large boulder, dragging through the snow.

"D'm'rk?" Sweden voiced stupidly. "Y'r s'ppos'd t' be in y'r borders. Dist'nctly 'member hearin' 'bout Spain [6] lockin' y' there."

The smile gracing Denmark's face was wolfish. "Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Might pay him a little visit after I'm done kicking your ass."

Forgot about that? Sweden looked at Denmark, and then down the chains once more. Sitting up, he reached out and touched the rock.

It was Denmark's soil, all right. He could feel the winter's bite, coldly wet, the wind rushing with a pack of breezes. The water lapping invitingly along the shore, whispering about raiding season. The lovely flowers that blossomed on the hillsides. The children running out to gather them, and push each other into the mud. The plagues that took people in the dead of winter, winnowing the people down to the strongest. The strength of carpenters carving the knaar of their dragon boats. The assurance that everyone outside of Denmark had wonderful things that they just _wanted_ to give Denmark because he was wonderful, too. The glory in the screams and pain coming from dark corners of the rough stone fortifications. The feeling of an axe strong in the hands, swinging down to chop a log open. The secret knowledge of the masters passing down to apprentices in the mead house. The weight of a stew pot in a woman's hands as she scrubbed the burned supper from it's iron innards. The guilt of the young girl who had been chasing grasshoppers through long summer grass of _her_ land, who had laughed at seeing her, rejoicing with the child for the glorious season, free of the wolf boats for this one glorious day, rather than watching that precious meal. The blood in the freezing autumn water as raiders fell on themselves in fits of jealousy. The collapse of their unity. The way they fell, violently clawing each other, fighting, fighting, fighting. The strength of mind in the women, planning and plotting, navigating the territorial waters with ease. Margarethe.

Denmark suddenly leaned in, pilfered bottle now empty. One hand slid Sweden's larger arm away from the anchor. The other tilted the strong chin so the familiar face was bathed in starlight. Denmark hovered far too close, something dancing in his violent eyes, as the air from his lungs wrapped around Sweden. "Hey, you wanna touch my rocks; it'll feel much better on the real thing."

Something that had been distilled mostly from apples lingered on his breath.

"D'n't be a perv'rt," Sweden scowled, ripping his sleeve from Denmark's grasp, and feeling about for his long sword.

Denmark laughed once more. The happy laugh of a boy, who has been punched and is absolutely delighted that his foe fought back, peeled from the mouth more suited to bass drinking songs. "Nah. Let's do it. Right here, right now," he ran bare fingers through Sweden's hair, grasping the nation's skull, feeling the skin, warm and tantalizing. "You think touching me is great? Imagine what it's going to be like for that prude Preussen. Us, right here on his soil. Imagine," Denmark's teeth glinted in his fiercely grinning mouth.

The scabbard suddenly came to hand, and Sweden brought it up, cracking Denmark in the face. Anything to get rid of the letch, and his revolting thoughts. Curiosity, though, undermined the tall nation, and kept him from doing more than kick Denmark in the groin as he shoved him away.

The board that had been on his stomach dropped into the snow, and it managed to draw blue introspective eyes for a distracted minute. The blue dog under the red jaws of the lion had nearly rubbed out of the wood work. The tavern sign. Denmark had propositioned him through a tavern sign. Disgusting, and that board had probably been the only thing that kept the rogue from getting personal with his vital regions.

Still, Danmark had to have known Sweden was strong enough to beat him senseless for the suggestion that they unite. Sometimes the fool only _acted_ like an idiot, and the images from the rock were still haunting Sweden. _Yes, it had all been that way once. A lovely prison, whose shackles made them all the fiercest warriors that the world had seen. According to Danmark, at least. Odd how being a proud member of a wolf pack is paired with being hungry and cold all the time._

Denmark was many things, but gentle was not one of them. So the gentleness of the fingers around Sweden's wrist, guiding the arm away from the rocky land and iron chains, instead of wrenching it from the Nordic soil, had to have been a trap of some sort. Perhaps a feint. A call in the night saying: I want you to ignore this. What had Sweden been about to find out about the essence of Denmark that the old wolf did not want him to know?

From the hollow in the snow that Denmark had created with his fall, one hand rose, rattling its chain energetically. "So, that's a 'no,' then? We could head back over to your place if you're uncomfortable with pissy little Prussia watching. I wouldn't be. I think we might blow his mind, y'know? I heard that he once spent a year flagellating himself for feeling up Hungary. See, the clear mistake was that he didn't go further than an accidental grab. I mean, the girl's got boobs! Tiny ones, but still: boobs!"

It was useless to ask, and usually Sweden would not have given Denmark the opening, but he was feeling tired after a night of boozing and fighting, as other nation would have it. "C'n y' stop bein' sick-mind'd f'r fiv' m'nutes?"

"Nope! C'mon, think of the boobs. You know you want to," pause, as though a thought had finally managed to fire through the mass of blonde that was precariously balancing a scrap of red which might once have been a crown. "Wait. This isn't about the whole you not liking boobs, thing, is it? 'Cause we could think of cocks, instead. If you prefer. Hey, I see some more bottles. This is my lucky day!"

Sweden rubbed a throbbing forehead. This was not what he wanted to deal with right now. "H've a t'rr't'ry d'spute t' see 'bout," he mumbled, managing to get all the way to the balls of his feet. An impressive feat for someone with a breast plate.

Some more clanking. "Ooh! This one was made with cherries! You want to share this one with me. Really, c'mon. Nothing will be any different in a few hours. After all, we both got stomped."

Reluctantly, Sweden settled back in the snow, cross-legged. Alcohol would take the edge away. The deep keening in his chest that had been easier to bear after the fight, but still, it hurt. He wanted to smash something, or hurt something, or do _something_. The armies he'd met so far were all bloody scraps, and maybe splitting his attention between whatever Poland and Russia were up to and this utter loss and wreck of a war would make it all easier to think, or at least stop _feeling_.

The cherries burned comfortably, although the lip of the bottle tasted a little like something appley and a lot like Denmark's blood. Sweden passed it back mutely. Denmark studied the bottle in the manner of a man about to jump into freezing water, and trying to dismiss his common sense. Seeing as Denmark had no common sense, and _certainly_ none when it came to alcohol, the thoughtful cast to the teal was strange.

"Y'know, I think you actually took more'n me, Sverige," tossing back his mouthful, Denmark handed back the bottle. "And you've gotten taller, which is quite a feat for you. It's been a good century in your _new_ place, I'm guessing."

That burned bore than the cherry thing. A good century? He had just lost a fantastic, wonderful leader, and _it was all Sweden's fault_.

Sweden nearly brained his foe with the brandy. "Sh't 'p. Wh't d'y'know?"

Denmark swiped the bottle, his lips lifting in a silent growl. "More'n you. Always more'n you. I'm older. _Better_. Remember that!"

Sweden, moving for the bottle, suddenly found his fingers around Denmark's throat, and the smaller nation's head bouncing off the frozen ground hidden by the snow because Sweden was shaking him furiously even as he throttled his former overlord. Letting go, Denmark collapsed weakly onto his back, leaving Sweden to glare down at his prostrate form. "Y'r _beaten_ Danmark. Y'r ch'ned t' y'r own l'nd. Y'r army's d'ne for. Did Spain 'ven l've y' y'r crown? Th' wolf boats'r _gone_. Y'r _weak_."

That something flashed once more in Denmark's expression. In was savage, hungry, the old killing mood. Shedding rusty flakes of dried blood, Denmark found their bottle again, and he drained it defiantly, struggling to sit up, showing nothing but the furious turmoil in his face now. Pulling the glass from between his lips, the seafarer watched his own saliva begin to freeze intently.

"Yeah. He left me my crown. About the only thing I was allowed to keep after his pet Bohemian cornered me," Denmark suddenly told Sweden, his voice a single line of anger. "I was surprised you weren't there, honestly. He _invited_ everyone else. I mean, England obviously couldn't come, what with that civil war, or whatever. But everyone else who hated Spain [7]. I got to be an example to France about would happen if he pushed that Catholic's precious Holy Roman Emperor. Silly, stupid, God-damned _feckless_ Prussia got to watch the _fun_. That Castillian gagged me. You'd have loved that, wouldn't you? Me on my knees, forced to shut up, and put in my place. He promised Prussia pieces of me if the jerk'd renounce his tolerance of Lutherans. Greedy little pervert almost did, you know [8]. But you weren't there. You had more _important_ things to do. You're a _big_ nation with interests in the Commonwealth and Russia."

Sweden watched, keeping his exterior passive and controlled with a great will, as Denmark tossed the bottle away. It shattered on a frozen beam. Denmark suddenly grinned. "But I'm still _better_ than you, Sverige. Y'know why?"

The grin was like a five year old about to put a frog in someone's lap.

Sweden had to answer, though, because there was an edge to the smile, terrible and brittle. The edge that said Denmark had nothing left, really. Not his precious union, not the nations he had counted upon. The wolf had lost his pack. That was about as safe as a lion without a pride. "Why?"

Denmark beamed. "Because all that happened to me, and I'm still he-ere."

That _was_ true. Denmark had no business in a warm Brandenburg-Prussian tavern, trading blows with a slightly inebriated Sweden. Honestly, Denmark had no business surviving all the centuries he had, charging into danger with reckless abandon and little to no care for his people—who were, to a fault, clearly his, because standing on Denmark's soil probably conferred the exact imbalance between cholera, sanguine and melancholy that he possessed.

"Why'r y' here, th'n?" It was Sweden's turn to fish around in the rubble. "Prussia 'vite ya?"

Denmark shrugged. "Sorta. I heard you were getting royally smashed, which was something I had to see. Never seen you out of control, really. Berserker rage, yes, but not out of control. Well, actually, I heard that you were trying to get royally smashed, and failing spectacularly. Pansy Prussia was all impressed on you and the liquor handling."

"Mmm," Sweden cut his fingers on some glass, and pulled them up to his mouth. It was better than answering that line of conversation, anyway.

Denmark looked up at the stars eventually. "They're not worth it, you know."

"Hmm?" Blood was a coppery presence on Sweden's tongue.

"Humans. I realize you're new to the whole independent nation thing," at this, Sweden nearly took Denmark's head off with the force of his glare. He had been a nation before the Treaty of Kalmar, and had far more experience than the stunted little iron wielding idiot. "But take it from me, and you really should, because I always give the best advice, humans aren't worth it. They're like mayflies, Su. Get attached to one, and then that's it."

Picking up a handful of snow with naked fingers, Denmark let it crumble back to the ground. "They die. Even the ones who make it all work. _Especially_ the ones who make it work. You're their country. You've got to endure for them, because, otherwise, even those short lives have no meaning."

Sweden's intake of breath sounded more like a small cry of a wounded kitten. "N't true, y'bastard."

Denmark smiled grimly. "Oh, he was one of those special ones, then, wasn't he? They come and go, Sverige. There'll be other special ones. You're a country, right?"

"I _know_ I h've resp'sibil'ties! 'll do my duty."

That was unexpected. Denmark raised his fingers to rumple his hair in thought. "Here, this ain't got anything to do with your liking boys, does it?"

Sweden gave the man who had suggested that they have sex on Prussia's soil just to freak out the quickly expanding duchy—_who had been promised the ability to partition Denmark only a few years ago_—a dirty look. "No."

"Sure?"

"V'ry."

Silence for a moment. Then: "You know how I feel about Margarethe."

Another, longer, dirty look. "'M not ya. 'M Sweden. Sverige. D'n't mix bein' a creep wit' that. Leaders might be _spec'l,_ but 'm a n'tion. Th'r'll alw'ys be a leader."

"Oh yeah? And I'm Matthias. Nice to meet you," Denmark held out a chained hand.

Sweden's control faltered, leaving his face to drain of what little color it possessed. He'd been avoiding thinking about this. Denmark noticed. "Got a little blood in your mouth, Berwald. We're not _just_ nations. We're men, too. Hell, it doesn't even have to be leaders. Francis and his little visionary girl, case in point—,"

"D'n't t'lk t' me 'bout Fr'ncis."

Sweden could tell that Denmark was at a loss. Good. He wanted to keep it that way. There was no reason to stay here. There had never been a reason to stay here. Unfortunately, among the overwhelming density in Denmark's head, there were the occasional clear spots.

"Hey—isn't this place—there's a town nearby named after you, or something [9]," Denmark observed brightly.

Already risen to his towering height, Sweden looked down at his armor for a second. "Ja. Bärwalde. Fr'ncis 'nd I 'rranged f'r a meetin' here. 'Lmost two y'rs ago, now. Gustav 'greed t' 'nvade 'gainst th' Catholics. I want'd it. W'nted th' land HRE's sittin' on. W'nted t' give my Luth'rns some s'curity. Now look: 'm goin' t'be 'n 'mpire, 'nd all it took was Gustav's life. 'M his Sverige. Gotta wond'r: who 'lse will I do it to?"

Sweden raised one half of his mouth in a mocking smile, trying to capture Danmark's normal disrespect. It still hurt. He allowed his expression to slip back into neutral. Controlled. His long sword appeared in his right hand. With grace, he sheathed it. The sun would be up soon, and he had a new war to get to.

* * *

**Footnotes**

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[1] – At this point in history, the Prussia we know and love is just beginning to grow up into, well, the Prussia we know and love. His Polish duchy only recently united with the duchy of Brandenburg, an independent entity from Poland and the HRE. At several points in the fic he will be called little. Part of this could be because he is still maturing, or because Prussia-Brandenburg is a small territory in comparison to others, or because it's the Thirty Years War, and Sweden has been raging up and down Prussia's landscape, destroying everything in his path, and he will come back to do it again. Arguably, the Thirty Years War is what creates Prussia, as by demolishing the agriculture, infrastructure, and population of the region, it forces Prussia's rulers into some interesting political gymnastics to fix things. As to why Prussia is putting up with Sweden being all mopey in his bar: it's Sweden. He's on the rise, he has just come off brutally dismembering a whole army in his grief, and the Swedish army _decimated_ Brandenburg. You give him as many drinks as it takes to keep him happy.

[2] – The Swedish Army was made of nightmare fuel in the bad old days. They invaded Ducal Prussia because it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth was trying to take over Sweden (bad plan, it turns out). Ducal Prussia had been converted to Lutheranism, and basically invited Sweden in because it wanted Sweden to attack the Polish overlords. A good idea in theory, but Sweden was in a serious expansionist mood, and France had invited Sweden into the bloodbath of the Thirty Years War. On a map of Europe in the 1630s try looking at where Sweden is, where Poland is, and where the HRE is. Prussia is right between Poland and the HRE, so any army that is trying to get from Poland to the HRE goes through where? Prussia. And because of the make-up of Brandenburg-Prussia, the army technically goes through Prussia twice, because you have Polish Prussia, and then you have Brandenburg. Yeah, fun times. Because while the Swedes weren't _nice_ in Polish Prussia, they were torturing, killing, sons of bitches in Brandenberg, because they wanted to take over the entirety of the HRE, and Brandenburg was the first duchy of the HRE available to Sweden.

Why didn't Sweden take the sea approach and launch a serious attack from the seagoing vessels on the sections of the HRE to the south, though? Well, basically because Denmark was in the way, and had control over most of that piece of the Baltic. Sweden and Denmark hold the record for most wars with one another, but things were cooling down between them, and they were both trying to keep each other at arms' rather than sword length. Both were staunchly Protestant kingdoms, and Sweden had just finished with a nasty war with Denmark which had left it in deep debt to the island nation. So the land route into the HRE looked like the best option.

The Swedes were not kind to Brandenburg-Prussia when they invaded. The typical order of events when you are a great army is to 1. Invade; 2. Loot and freaking pillage, so that the locals can't rise against you; 3. Move in and start administering taxes so that you can go off and begin step one elsewhere. The Swedes were so efficient when it came to step two that step three failed spectacularly when Axel Oxensteirna tried to administer Brandenburg in the Thirty Years' War. It turns out that when you have either killed or raped or stolen everything from every single member of the populace, they just simply _can't_ pay taxes. It was Sweden discovering that it was spending more money on keeping Brandenburg afloat than it was collecting from other invaded areas (keeping in mind that Sweden was not by any means a rich country itself thanks to that war indemnity it owed Denmark) that they started cracking down on the more Viking-like policies in their armies. Sweden is still responsible for over 50% of the death that the Thirty Years' War caused in Brandenburg alone. This is taking into account the plagues, and famine that occurred as a result of the war.

[3] – Actually, France is technically Sweden's ally. They are funding the war, together with the Dutch. However, no one really has an answer as to why Sweden accepted the offer to enter into a campaign in Northern Germany. There are probably many reasons. The fic relies on Sweden's need for Imperial expansion as a motivation—hence why he dreams of conquering France on his way to Spain, who I am casting as the 'villain' of this part of history, despite the fact that everyone is pretty awful. Sweden is a Protestant country, and needs to repress the Catholic power of the Holy Roman Empire, while encouraging the Lutherans in the Northern area.

[4] – The Danish Queen who created the Kalmar Union. Quite a smart and clever person in her own right, I use her as a stand in for the Kalmar Union in several places. Partially this is because to the countries in question it was not known as the Kalmar Union. That's a name for it tacked on by later historians who liked neatness in their labeling. I do try to keep some historical accuracy, and so I try not to have Sweden or Denmark refer to the Union as the Union too much. The label has been made, but these countries are more familiar with Kalmar as a treaty than a union of nations. The other reason is that using her as a stand in for the Kalmar Union, given the concept of Hetalia, just tickles me. Reverse anthropomorphism for the win.

[5] – After the Swedish army lost Gustav, the country withdrew partially from the war—they would come back at the request of France—and put their energies into monitoring the Polish and Russian borders. Sweden is a burgeoning superpower right now, and can afford to keep his attention on several fronts.

[6] – Here is where I play a little faster and looser with history than I would like, but I haven't encountered a Bohemia in APH yet. Here's the quick low down: The Danes invade northern Germany quite happily, making tremendous gains, and thinking that they will save protestantism for everyone. Emperor Ferdinand II hears about it, gets exasperated, and calls for a Bohemian general. This general catches the Danish army with its tactical pants down, and forces them to retreat back into Denmark, and all the way out to Zealand, which is only protected because it's an island. At that point, fearing that they're tying up resources, and this will get the incredibly powerful Sweden in the war on the side of Protestant Denmark in an alliance, the HRE forces make a deal. They will retreat and in return the Danes have to stay in Denmark, and can no longer attack the HRE. At the very end of the war they will even join the Imperial side, although this seemed to be a cover for attacking Sweden.

I suppose I could have said that the HRE locked Denmark up, but it was really a Bohemian general who had been commissioned by Ferdinand II. I chose to give Spain the credit, because the HRE is really just the battle ground for the Thirty Years War. Making Spain the main foe just works better for me, as a simplification of the end of the Danish intervention.

[7] – The Danish were expecting support against Imperial Spain from Anglican England, Protestant Sweden, Anti-Imperial France, and Protestant Brandenburg. For various reasons all of these allies fell through. Brandenburg, in particular, just wanted some peace, and fewer armies destroying its means of livelihood every day, and so remained neutral when the Danes encountered the Imperial forces. Historically none of the allies were involved in what happened to Denmark, and Denmark was not used as an example in the way I imply. However, the way Denmark-Norway was forced to give up its territorial ambitions and plans for Protestantism was absolutely humiliating, and no one wanted to end up like the Danish Kingdom, which had shrunk in size, and who had a leader confined to it's capital, and in alliance with the power that had confined him. Denmark-Norway took out these frustrations on Sweden during the end of the war. Denmark still lost.

[8] – Prussia and Austria took the Danish-allied territories of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark in 1864. It took two wars for Prussia to do it (the Austrians ended up acting pretty much like cannon fodder, as the Prussians invaded, and went a-pillaging), but the loss of those territories were a death knell for Danish foreign policy for a time. Some historians place the isolationist policy that kept Denmark out of the first World War as a continuation of the Danish response to losing those territories. Anyway, as I said earlier, historically Prussia was not invited to watch Denmark's humiliating defeat, but I like the idea of the Bad Touch Trio getting together before they became a trio, and pre-gaming, as it were, for their later relationship.

[9] – More of an 'Or something.' Bärwalde translates into 'Bear Woods,' which probably has some etymological connections to 'Berwald,' but I'm not certain about that.

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Thank you for reading.

~ MF


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